Why Are You?
by JereduLevenin
Summary: If I even explain this, it would be a spoiler. Just know that this delves deep into the keyblade masters' pasts. Sora was not the first. He is one of many. If you want to know more, there is no choice but to read on. This isn't like anything you've read.


This is entirely original fiction... It started out as a child bargaining with Death, but it changed into... something else. READ IT. I won't tell you what it's about, because even THAT is a spoiler. Just read.

"Why are you?" The child asked.

The dark figure blinked.

"Why? Why indeed," he pondered. The silence grew into a cacophony just beyond the edge of hearing. The child waited, the silence so loud it hurt. Finally, the figure met the child's eyes.

"I cannot answer that now. Another question."

The child pouted, wide-eyed innocence like a candle in the darkness. The figure merely waited.

"Why does it hurt here?" The child placed a hand on the figure's chest. The figure closed his eyes and came to sit beside the child. The child met his gaze again.

"Do you have a name?"

The figure thought for a moment.

"I have been called a lot of things."

The child looked at the ground.

"Oh. Okay."

They let the silence breathe for a moment.

"Let me tell you a story," the figure whispered, "about a boy named Armando."

"'Kay." The child shifted to a more comfortable position. The figure paused for a moment as the silence leaned in to listen. Then, he began to speak.

"It was longer ago than I care to remember… When Armando's story began. He lived as all children do- in pure existence. It was on no particular day that he woke up wanting."

"What did he want?" the child asked.

"Freedom. And knowledge. He wanted to see what else lay beyond his life. He wanted to see what the stars saw. He had dreamed the night before of things he had never seen, and he wanted to know their meaning. So he left his home. He, and his two friends. They lived in a place that those few who remember it now call the City of Origin, or the City of Dawning. But it, too had a name. A name that most nobody remembers."

"Do you know the name?" The child asked.

"Yes. But I will not speak it. For the place that owned that name no longer exists. Nor does what it came to be called. All that exists now is the Nothing. It is the place called 'End of the World.'"

The child blinked in confusion. "That is not a place."

The figure nodded in agreement. "True. But that is neither here nor there. Armando left. He never looked back. His friends were loyal; they stood by his side as he searched for the place of knowing. But when he found his answers, he found something else."

"What did he find?" The child questioned.

"Darkness," came the simple reply. "Darkness had been let loose. Armando decided that he was going to do something about it. He wanted to fight… so the Light made him it's champion. He, and his two friends, a boy named Bastion and a girl named Kotir. They set out to seal the Darkness.

"They knew that they would most likely not be permitted to return home once the Darkness was locked away. They suffered many tears of sorrow and joy over the journey. They fought and laughed and cried and bled and grew closer with every moment. Armando was the champion, though, so the task ultimately fell to him to seal the Darkness. And when that moment came, so did the knowledge he sought.

"However, to seal the Darkness, he must seal himself inside with it. He hesitated, and in that moment of indecision, the Darkness took him and his friends. They fell because of his indecision. They still closed the door, but they found themselves locked outside it. So they faded into Twilight."

The child nodded. "That's why you hurt. Because they made you stay here. Because you couldn't find the Light, right?"

Armando nodded. "Yes. And that is the answer to all three questions."

The child stood up, taking Armando's trembling hand in two smaller, steady ones.

"Come on, then! They're waiting."

And for the first time since the Darkness came, Armando smiled.

Soooooo... comments? Surprised? Intrigued? Check my website for pics of Armando, as he will soon be a key character in my fics. The following info is MUST READ info. As in how this all relates to Kingdom Hearts. Consider it to be the rest of this fic…

This is the information you will NEED TO KNOW if you want to understand the Kindgdom Hearts saga that is beginning. This is the backstory of Armando, Bastion, and Kotir, along with Sora's involvement. This may or may not be the same fic as Kingdom of Shadows. You'd better read all of this, or I will personally tell you the entire thing, ad nauseum.

First things first.

We all know that Sora is one of several key bearers that have appeared over the course of the ages. In my fic-verse, Sora is the THIRD key bearer to come along. We ALSO all know the legend about how the keyblade either brings great light and unity to the worlds, or it plunges them into darkness. It has brought both great hope and terrible destruction. Armando and crew date back from the very FIRST key bearer's time.

The fist key bearer was very much like Sora. But, unlike Sora, he didn't get split up from his friends. They journeyed with him. In every case, it has always consisted of a trio- two boys, and one girl. A perfect triad. So, when the moment came to seal the Darkness behind the Door to Darkness, there was no Riku and Mickey on the other side. Armando, Bastion, and Kotir would have to be locked in with the Darkness. And in that crucial moment, Armando failed. He hesitated, and that hesitation cost him and his friends their lives. The darkness swallowed them. They managed to close the doors from the outside, even as they were, but not before the Darkness escaped. Thus the creation of my characters, the Nobody Triad. As the three of them had strong hearts, their Heartless were weak, but their Nobodies were powerful.

Their Heartless vanished with the swarm, but the Nobodies remained, upsetting a critical balance, though they never actively did anything. Truly, the keyblade had wrought destruction. Eventually, the Darkness subsided to a manageable level. Armando, Bastion, and Kotir's world, Light's Citadel, was swallowed by the Heartless and became what WE know as End of the World. Things continued to escalate for centuries, until the SECOND key bearer and her two friends appeared. She, plus two other keyblade-wielding boys, fought the Heartless and won. They were successful in sealing the Darkness behind the Doors.

They also confronted the Triad, bound them behind the Masks, and sealed them into the Heart of Darkness, which is the place that Xehanort's Heartless referred to as Kingdom Hearts. The false Kingdom Hearts, if you will, rather than the Darkness in which the Heartless dwell. Now, centuries later, Sora came along. When he fought "Ansem," he opened the Door to the Heart of Darkness, and he released the Triad.

THAT is how they came to be in this story. There are two factions, or divisions of Nobodies: Organization XIII, and the Triad. The Triad opposes the Organization, wanting not hearts, but solace. They eventually join Sora's side in the war, and Sora eventually unlocks the Masks from their faces.

And that's the story.


End file.
